Two archaeologists from Michigan are bringing to light a fascinating period of Salt Lake City's history.
Back then, the creations of pioneer craftsmen were so prized that residents paid more for them than for imported goods. Children hung around pottery shops, swapping information about clay deposits for marbles that the potter made. And the best way to store food was to preserve it in sealed ceramic crocks kept in ice houses.
"This is an amazing site, and we've worked really hard to get just to this point," said Timothy James Scarlett, assistant professor in the relatively new field of industrial archaeology. Based at Michigan Technical University in Houghton, he called the dig exciting, satisfying and provocative.
"It's really interesting," said grad student Chris Merritt, also of Michigan Tech. "That's why I got into archaeology in the first place. In history you read about it; in archaeology you get your hands on it."
The site, near 600 South and 300 East, is private property whose owner is glad to have Scarlett excavate. Since his grad-student days, Scarlett has focused on the subject of early Utah pottery.
Scarlett maintains an Internet site on the subject, "Utah Pottery Project Homepage" www.ss.mtu.edu/faculty/Scarlett/Research/UPP/upphome.htm and updates a web log detailing the discoveries.
For this project he's self-funded, using tools loaned by archaeologists of Wasatch-Cache National Forest and others. "I took an unpaid leave of absence and gave up my apartment" to carry out the dig, Scarlett said.
"I'm out of money," he added. As of July 30 the project will wrap up. Staff members at This is the Place Heritage Park will help backfill the excavated material, restoring the yard.
For now, the rectangular pit is the size of a large backyard wading pool. Thick tree roots snake along, exposed by the dig but supported by ridges of earth that the archaeologists left. The skull of a dog, probably a pet buried here, lies uncovered in the dark earth. Nearby are broken pieces of terra cotta. Beyond is a stone foundation wall.
This was one of the workshops of a prosperous potter from Denmark, Frederick Petersen. A convert to the LDS Church, Petersen immigrated to Utah in 1852 as an apprentice. After the master potter died about 1859, the apprentice set up his own kiln.
"We're absolutely certain he was here by the middle of the 1860s," Scarlett said.
The Petersens' large adobe home was a landmark in the neighborhood with its terra-cotta roof, and the potter's wives were famous as "the three weavers."
In 2002, Scarlett earned his Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno. The following year, the landowner called Scarlett, who had left his card on a visit. "He was planning some expansions of his house" and wanted to hold off until he knew whether the work would damage archaeological features.
In 2004 Scarlett did some "shovel test probes" and found that the extension would not impact the location of the early shop. Now he and Merritt are doing follow-up excavation at the site of a workshop.
Large stones at the rear of the property are what is left of foundation walls that once supported the wood-frame workshop. The workshop itself is multi-layered, and the layers tell stories.
Beneath an asphalt surface was a blacktop surface. Under that was a light-colored layer of clay-like material. Under the clay was a thicker stratum of coal and waste, where the excavation is taking place.
"It would have been a dusty, messy place," Scarlett said. The coal dates from between 1870, when the railroad reached Salt Lake City and began hauling in coal, and 1898, when Petersen died, and the family discontinued the pottery.
The light layer probably is clay, from piles that were curing before they would be used in making ceramics. When the potter-making ended, Scarlett theorizes, the family shoveled clay over the clinkers and waste.
The lid of a washing machine that stood beside the excavation was covered with paper bags, each labeled, each holding finds. Scarlett joked that the washing machine was "the lab table."
One treasure discovered was a set of what seem to be long feather quills, found stuck to an iron plate. All were carefully split vertically. At first this puzzled the diggers, who thought nobody would split quills that were used for writing. Then they realized, the feathery material could have been extracted from the quills for use on fancy lady's hats.
"Very fashionable, 1880s, '90s," Scarlett said of these hats. Perhaps, the three weavers were making millinery goods at the same time the potter was making his wares.
A shiny brown-glazed marble was among the prizes. Potters would make them for neighborhood children, who liked to hang around the shop. Sometimes boys out chopping wood in the hills would find a good deposit of clay, grab a sample, and trade the location for marbles.
One large fragment of pottery was from a milk pan, while another was from a storage crock that could have held a gallon or more of preserves in the ice house.
Fragments of terra-cotta roofing tile, made by the pottery, may have fallen from Petersen house, to be replaced by more homemade tile. "Almost everyone had wood shingles," he said.
The fragments will show how the tiles were made. "We can see the tool marks and the mold marks," Scarlett said.
Kenyon Kennard, curator at This is the Place Heritage Park, visited the dig Thursday with his 10-year-old daughter, Lily.
In the 19th century LDS Church leaders felt that "through these crafts they could provide a society where everyone would have work," he said, a society where crafts were valued. For example, they "sent missionaries to proselytize potters in Staffordshire, England," famous then and now for pottery manufacturing.
Potters who joined the church and came to Utah helped communities be self-sufficient.
At the time, a pioneer ideal was to purchase locally-made goods, he said. Later, "they began to assimilate into broader American culture."
Lily watched the archaeologists work. "It's really cool," she said. "I just like the pottery and stuff."
E-mail: bau@desnews.com